Scarred
by Splasher
Summary: We were two broken halves of two different hearts. The pieces hardly fit together, but they were all we had in a time like this. Set between R2 21 and R2 25. Spoilers! Suzaku x C.C. Implied LlxCC and EuphiexSuzaku, too.


_Author's Note_: This is for SpacePirateGirl, Selena, Lenny, or whatever she wants to be called because I know how bad she wants to get out of her infatuation with Suzaku x C.C, and this will not help her at all. How mean I am. Have fun reading. And advice, please, advice . . . .

_Summary_: We were two broken halves of two different hearts. The pieces hardly fit together, but they were all we had in a time like this. Set between R2 21 and R2 25. Spoilers! Suzaku x C.C.

**_Warning_: Massive spoilers for the last episode of Code Geass R2. Please, please, please don't read unless you've seen it. It'll ruin it for you.**

_Disclaimer_: I don't own this. I'm making no profit except self-confidence from it.

* * *

Scarred

_

* * *

There was a time when death bothered me. I would cry for hours and mourn for days, and every death laid a scar upon my heart. The scars grew to an increasing amount because I, undying, would watch the mortal souls drift away. Soon, the scars numbered to more than there was of my heart. It shriveled away, and without my heart, there are no scars._

_And without the scars, there are no tears._

* * *

Zero Requiem gambled Lelouch vi Britannia's life for the sake of world peace. The tossed die would land, and the chance of succeeding would never be certain. However, he didn't seem to realize that. He always strode ahead when victory had a hundred percent of a chance.

But his solitude had blinded him, and for him, I was no longer his light.

He didn't enjoy speaking of his plans to me—he, who had never hidden anything; he, who always told me everything. I didn't mind. When I remember it now, I wonder if his seclusion might have saved me, if him, telling me more about his life, and me, having more of him to miss, would have ruined me. And sometimes I wonder if he stopped all communication between us deliberately. He knew so much about me of which I had never known about myself.

The month in which we planned and planned and planned every aspect of Zero Requiem was not a happy time for any of us. Melancholy, being the perfect word to describe it, plagued us, Lelouch, Kururugi, and me. Soon it happened so that there were no further needs for planning, no promises for Lelouch to give Kururugi, and only time for us to return.

I remember the days of the palace greatly. They reminded me of a time when Marianne was still alive, and Lelouch was but a child. But those days were sunny, and these days were dark.

I tired throughout most of the day, and couldn't sleep throughout the night. Lelouch and I shared a bed because he couldn't sleep without me. Sometimes he would wake up screaming, and it would take hours to calm him again. When morning came, he was cold, distant Lelouch vi Britannia again, and he didn't share his fears or doubts with anyone.

Like myself, he secluded his feelings.

No one knew us anymore; we hardly even knew each other.

But we were not the only troubled ones. I had discovered one night how Kururugi never slept either.

Lying awake in bed, and Lelouch calmly sleeping beside me, I grew bored of staring at the ceiling. Soon enough, I stood and dressed—leaving only when I was certain Lelouch would not wake while I was gone. Then, unsure of where to go, I simply wandered the halls.

I ran across him that night. He sat at a table in the kitchen and stared gloomily across the room. He didn't even look up as I entered.

"How respectful of a knight," I mocked sarcastically and sat down beside him, "not even caring when a woman enters."

As if disturbed from some deep sleep, Kururugi glanced at me for a moment before his eyes widened, and he straightened in his seat. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I was just . . . thinking."

"Obviously."

"Did you need something?" he asked in his gentlemanly, knightly tone.

I stifled a sigh and leaned back in the chair. "No. I just couldn't sleep."

At that, the Kururugi faded into his hypnosis again.

"You're troubled," I said. I didn't care at all, of course; but I _was _a human, and by being human, I needed a simple conversation with somebody. Kururugi happened to be the nearest.

"I couldn't sleep either," he admitted. A hint of regret clouded his face, and a pause stopped him from continuing. I was sure he wouldn't speak again when suddenly his mouth opened, and I was proven wrong. "I know what we're doing is right," said he, suddenly angry, "and I know things can't stay the way they are. But there _has _to be another way, a way other than someone dying! Why does it have to be him, what has he done to deserve this?"

Startled at the outburst, I stared at him for a few seconds before answering. "Maybe it's what he wants," I said calmly.

That seemed to anger him even more. "How could he want to die?"

It occurred to me that he wasn't really asking—just voicing his thoughts aloud. Nevertheless, I answered again. "Maybe he's committed a grave sin, and dying is the only way he can satisfy himself."

Kururugi put his forehead in his hands, as if to ward off a headache.

"You feel the same, don't you?" I guessed.

He didn't answer.

I pretended he did. "That makes three of us."

"Exactly." Kururugi lifted his head and met my gaze with tormented eyes. "So why does it have to be him?"

* * *

The next few days I pondered Kururugi's question. I searched for the answer that was just beyond reach. Lelouch had committed more sins than any of us, yes, but he had done them for a higher purpose. Why did it have to be him who died for them, while my sins were the selfish ones?

When the answer finally occurred to me—at night—I left Lelouch's cold, lonely room, and found Kururugi in the kitchen once again. This time, he nodded at me as I entered as if he were expecting me.

I stopped under the doorway, and curiously he blinked at me and waited for me to speak.

"Because he's the only one who can," I told the Kururugi, who was untouched by the answer. He understood without further elaboration. "Death is something you and I can't have, as I've said before," I continued.

He huffed. Leaving _his_ mouth, the sound was strange and foreign. "Don't compare yourself to me."

"You know it's true." Not offended in the least, I sat down across from him. "Even though you claim you regret wanting death, you have always wanted it, and you still want it now." A touch of humor invaded my voice. "You make no sense, Kururugi."

He glared. Again, the expression didn't suit him. "Neither do you."

Eyeing him with the usual look, I waited for him to realize his childish words had no effect on me. He never did. I sighed and looked away. "It could've been you, you know."

He blinked stupidly. "What do you mean?"

"It could've been you that I gave the Geass to."

"That would have been stupid." I half-expected him to be joking, but one glance at his grave face convinced me otherwise.

Ignoring the second childish remark, I set my head down on the table because though I couldn't sleep, I was still very tired and longed to get some rest. I closed my eyes and groaned slightly because I hated insomnia—it has happened several times to me before.

Kururugi mistook my action for something other than exhaustion. "What's wrong?"

And at that simple question, I realized there was something wrong, something that I now scold myself for speaking aloud. "He's getting worse." We both knew who "he" was.

"What do you mean?"

I opened my eyes and sat up straight. "He has nightmares—"

"The screaming ones?" Kururugi already knew about the nights Lelouch woke up in a terror. His bedroom wasn't far away.

"Not always. Sometimes he just moans or cries in his sleep, and if I wake him up, he won't sleep the rest of the night. I . . . don't know what to do." The words left my mouth trembling, and when I tried to stop them, I found that I couldn't. It didn't matter whether it was Kururugi, a stranger, or no one there at all—they wanted to be spoken. "I wish he would tell me things," I admitted, slightly embarrassed.

Kururugi had remained silent the entire time and merely listened to the words I dared not say again. Finally his gaze lowered. "Do you love him? As a friend, I mean."

My expression smoothed at the question, and I finally regained my calm. "I . . ." How could I answer to a question I had never expected? I only went with the first words that came to mind. "I wish I didn't."

* * *

It had become a ritual to meet in the kitchen. Even after the famed Knight of Lelouch vi Britannia "died," we still met. No one ever wandered the halls so late at night, and both Kururugi and I needed someone to complain to and someone who would listen—something of which I hadn't had for far too long.

"How are his nightmares?" Kururugi asked one night as I struggled not to stomp in.

"Worse, I suppose. He's locked me out of his room." I suppressed the urge to grimace. Kururugi gestured to a seat, but I didn't sit down. Instead I stood and dared him to pity me while I already pitied myself.

"Then where do you sleep?" he asked.

Finally I sat down. "I don't sleep. He knows I don't."

A sigh escaped his lips. He had noticed the bitterness I had been trying to hide. He knew that I was upset.

In many ways, he _was _like me, despite his protests. The only reason he knew my feelings with only a glance was because he felt much of the same emotions underneath his mask as well. We were alike, Kururugi and I.

"How long ago?" he asked.

"A week has passed since he told me he wanted to be alone."

He smiled slightly, but there was no happiness. "You've kept that hidden for so long."

I ignored that. "Sometimes I sit outside his room for hours, and beg him to let me in. He hears, but never listens."

"And he did before?" He continued without waiting for an answer. "What are you to him?"

Keeping my thoughts to myself, I remained silent. I was no one to Lelouch. An object that would ease his misery, that was all—and it was enough for me, and not enough for him.

* * *

The night before Zero Requiem occurred, I didn't find Kururugi in the kitchen, nor did I find him anywhere else. Instead, I found him in his room. He was sulking, and I knew he was still very young compared to me. Retaining some common courtesy, I knocked on his door, though I was already two feet in. "Can I come in?" I asked lifelessly.

Like the first night in the kitchen, Kururugi woke from a trance. He nodded.

I stepped forward and sat down next to him on his bed.

"I've come to a realization," he stated. It was monotone, devoid of emotion. "You love Lelouch, don't you?"

I didn't move. I stared at the wall. "You've already asked me this."

"I mean the way I loved Euphemia."

I glanced at him because his voice wasn't shaking when he said her name, and I saw that it had taken a great effort for him to keep it that way. Calm. His face was breaking up.

"Yes," I admitted. "I suppose I do love him." My own face fell into despair.

Kururugi leaned forward, and without hesitation, I mimicked him slowly. Our lips met, and for a moment, the action was soft. Then neither of us could help it—it grew rough. We both needed some suppressant for the horrible pain that conversation no longer quenched. Our anger and sadness and pain fueled the actions.

For a while, Kururugi wasn't Suzaku, and for a while, I wasn't C.C. We were both someone else for each other—someone who had faded out of reach. And it wasn't real, so there were tears.

Tears that his hair wasn't black and that his eyes were green. Tears that I wasn't the soft and gentle person he'd never been able to touch like he touched me now. Tears that we couldn't die, and that others who never deserved it could.

We were each a broken half of two different hearts. Two halves which somehow fit into a deformed heart, a heart that never should have existed. It was better than the two halves we would have been.

At some point, I started crying. Unsure of what to do, Kururugi murmured words of comfort and stroked my hair. He rested my head on his bare chest and allowed the scar of Lelouch's death (because he was dead the moment he had chosen his fate) to wound me.

"I don't want him to die," I begged Kururugi. "Why does he have to die?"

Suzaku's face was grim. "Because he's the only one who can."

_

* * *

Though it is odd and distorted, Suzaku still gave me some type of heart, which could be so easily scarred. And with the scars, there are tears. With the tears, my heart begins to piece together new parts to replace the old ones, and I realize I will have to start all over again._

_However, as Suzaku told me the day Lelouch died—starting over is one way not to relive things again._

* * *

-Splasher-


End file.
